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Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3714
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 12:13 am: | 
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Search ends for 50 migrants lost after boat blast 
March 2, 2007
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Friday for nearly 50 Haitian migrants feared dead after their homemade boat exploded and caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean, an agency spokesman said.
Crews stopped looking for survivors and remains after a nearly 31-hour search across 1,250 square miles yielded only the remains of five deceased passengers, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Petty Officer Barry Bena said.
Two of the estimated 56 passengers were rescued Tuesday by an American couple sailing from Panama to Antigua.
The fiberglass vessel the migrants were apparently taking from the northern Haitian town of Cap-Haitien to the Turks and Caicos Islands caught fire about 23 miles north of the Dominican Republic. Authorities did not know when the blaze occurred, when the migrants set sail or what caused the fire.
Five bodies were found by a Liberian-flagged merchant marine ship on Thursday, Bena said.
Two of what is estimated to have been 56 passengers on the boat were plucked from the Atlantic Tuesday by an American couple sailing from Panama to Antigua.
"I spotted an odd shape in the water. I thought it was a buoy," Jan Hein, a 53-year-old elementary school teacher from Gig Harbor, Washington, said.
But as she and husband Bruce Smith piloted their 34-foot wooden sailboat closer, curiosity turned to horror when they realized the shape was a man and a woman clinging to a stringy, charred piece of fiberglass.
"They were suffering," Hein said by phone from aboard their boat, the Woodwind, which was ported Friday in the Dominican town of Montecristi.
Hein and Smith lifted 27-year-old Djenson Loucien and a 23-year-old woman named Julie into their boat, washed the salt out of their burn wounds and tried to keep them warm after issuing a distress call.
The migrants told the they had possibly spent days clinging to the wreckage after a gas tank exploded while refueling at night.
The American couple sailed five hours south to the Dominican coast when no help came to meet them. Another sailboat owner answered their call upon arriving in Montecristi and helped rush the two Haitians to a hospital.
The pair were in stable condition Friday, and could spend at least two more weeks in the hospital, said Dr. Braulio Manuel Reynoso. Hein said their care was being paid for by the other sailboat owner, a developer with projects in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
Thousands of Haitians take to the sea on flimsy boats each year, heading north toward Florida to escape grinding poverty and frequent political turmoil in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. Nearly all are intercepted and repatriated to their homeland, where the vast majority of the nation's 8 million people lives on less than $1 a day.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/02/haitian.migrants.ap/index.html
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Lil_ze
Veteran Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 838
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 12:26 am: |
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let's see-
grinding poverty (ON LAND),
or the POSSIBILITY of economic betterment, by going through ROUGH, SHARK INFESTED WATERS on the way to the united states?
uhhhhhhhhhh, ill take poverty on land.
i don't claim to walk in the shoes of a haitian, who is risking his life to escape haiti, but the FACT is that what they are doing is AGAINST the LAWs of the united states.
its just not wise to attempt to break the laws of a country that you want reside in, and on top of this travel in an amazingly dangerous fashion.
if you are not willing to immigrate through LEGAL means, then don't do it at all.
i see PLENTY of hatians here in nyc, i doubt all of them broke u.s. law to come here. |
Renata
Veteran Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 1847
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 11:03 am: |
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Shut the fuhk up. Any CUBAN who reaches land here, is allowed by UNITED STATES LAW to stay here. I wonder why it's legal for one set of people (once they set foot on land) and illegal for the other?
I hope any of them coming here just get here safely. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3716
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 11:29 am: |
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Z - These people weren't even traveling to the U.S. Back away from the crackpipe. |
Lil_ze
Veteran Poster
Username: Lil_ze
Post Number: 841
Registered: 01-2006
Rating:
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 04:38 pm: |
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if the LAW of the united states that any cuban who lands here is allowed to stay, the LIVE with it!
like it or not we have to abide by the LAWS of this country.
if a haitian is not allowed to stay here, then he should not be here because this is the law.
by the way mzuri, did i make ONE reference to "these" people (the ones in the article)?
no i did not.
so maybe your ability to understand plain english is sub-par.
i made a comment about haitians coming to this country.
never did i say a WORD about the people in the article you posted. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 3725
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 04:51 pm: |
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SHOW SOME RESPECT FOR THE DECEASED!!! |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 1933
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 05:07 pm: |
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"Any CUBAN who reaches land here, is allowed by UNITED STATES LAW to stay here. I wonder why it's legal for one set of people (once they set foot on land) and illegal for the other? "
It's very simple (according to US Immigration Laws), the Cubans are allowed to stay (if they make it) because they are fleeing political persecution. Political persecution is grounds for amnesty and allowing someone to stay if they are fleeing a declared hostile country. The Haitians are running from poverty -not political persecution (according to US Immigration Laws). That is why the Cubans are allowed to stay (if they are not intercepted by the US Coast Guard) and Haitians are not. I don't agree with this policy but that is the legal logic behind the yea to Cubans and nay to Haitians.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 8619
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 08:19 pm: |
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Ntfs,
For most of the last 25 years, Haiti has been embroiled in enuff political strife to make most any Haitian who came here worthy of being deemed political refugees. Yet the US has not granted them special consideration.
Let's be REAL, bruh. Cubans are given preferences over Haitians because 1) The US government loathes Cuban dictator Fidel Castro with a passion and 2) Cubans generally are whiter-looking than Haitians. |
Urban_scribe
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 370
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 03, 2007 - 11:35 pm: |
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Abm, exactly, exactly, exactly. Further, Haiti has no political clout. It is the poorest country on the Western Hemisphere. The US can't exploit Haiti for its resources, or in any other way. On the other hand, can you say "Guantanamo Bay" boys and girls... |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 1937
Registered: 10-2005
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 01:36 pm: |
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"Let's be REAL, bruh. Cubans are given preferences over Haitians because 1) The US government loathes Cuban dictator Fidel Castro with a passion and 2) Cubans generally are whiter-looking than Haitians."
Oh! No doubt about it! I agree 100%! If you look at Haiti, the country has been in total political chaos for more than 25 years! But the since the US directly micro manages what goes on there, how can they declare the fleeing Haitians victims of political oppression? Too contradictory. So the policy of fleeing poverty (since it is the poorest nation in this part of the hemisphere) is the rationale they use for barring the Haitians while allowing the Cubans.
I have opposed this stupid embargo (Cuba) by the US because (and only because...) of the fierce and powerful lobbying of the Floridian Cubans for quite some time now. As you know, most countries in the West (including our neighbor, Canada) have ignored it. Thank God! The US governments reasoning for the embargo is Castro's human rights violations and political oppression. Yet the US openly and shamelessly kisses and licks the ass of the Red Chinese who are very open and unrepentant about their HR violations and political intolerance. And you know why!!!
Ya know, I was hoping Bill Clinton would have reversed this particular foreign policy against Cuba but he didn't. I was very disappointed for him not doing so. I'm serious when I say this, I thought he had the courage and fortitude to reverse this nonsensical policy. I was wrong.
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Serenasailor
Veteran Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 1372
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 04:09 pm: |
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When I lived in Miami I met many Haitians and let me tell you that those are some of the nicest, kindest, and loving ppl in the world.
I don't understand why Cubans are given preferential treatment over Haitians. Fidel Castro makes sure that all of his ppl have 3 meals a day. Granted they live in poverty too. But it is nothing like Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
White Cubans were some of the meanest, nastiest, and arrogant ppl around. They even treated the Black Cubans like shyt. Mind you you hardly ever see Black Cubans here anyways. Most Black Cubans don't have the money and resources to leave Cuba. And even if they did leave once they reach the U.S they would face Racism not only at the hands of the U.S but from their own ppl. |
Doberman23
Veteran Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 844
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 11:34 pm: |
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haiti owes all of it's struggles to the united states. you never know where they'd be if america had left them the fudge alone. i don't know if any of you had ever heard the story of chalarmaine but it was fudged up how they did that man.
i can't say i have a problem with white cubans or black cubans, i was stationed in gitmo for 8 months, and all of the people just wanted the same thing a chance. i also got along with all of them there so i felt a little bad for all of them. at gitmo there where also haitian camps, the haitains where trying to sneak over on all sorts of shitty boats and rafts too, and it was messed up that they where getting sent right back to haiti. but the information that ntfs gave is dead on. haiti is just going to have to get a castro of their own and then we'll see what america has for an excuse for not letting them come over here then. ... and we know that they would have that excuse made in a jiffy too. |
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